It's no white Christmas,

but my Thai Christmas has been pretty good. Thoughts of you dear reader, and of all my family and friends, are dancing in my head even as I enjoy my modest little Christmas here. Midnight mass (my first ever!) entirely in Thai, singing Christmas carols in front of 1500 students, teaching three classes, and a pad thai Christmas dinner with friends. And of course, opening presents that have traveled across one very big ocean to get here.



Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all.

With a heart full of cheer,
Rebecca

P.S. It appears no one told the person in charge of this display in Bangkok that there's a difference between Christmas elves and the seven dwarves. I guess it's an understandable confusion. Being here, and explaining Christmas traditions to students, has really driven home how bizarre the holiday season is in some ways. Trying to communicate through a language barrier that I am not a Christian but that I still celebrate Christmas has proved difficult. And hearing myself say that "in my country all the children think that a fat man comes down their chimney once a year"...pretty great. On the other hand, I've never had better insight into the depth of the sad Christmas songs like "I'll be home for Christmas," and "Blue Christmas."

The theme of class this week was "giving"

Some choice responses on the giving worksheet:

What would you give your friend for Christmas? Why?:
I would give friend my homework so copy. Because I like friend.

What would you give your mother for Christmas? Why?
I would give mother milk. Becaus she low cacium.

What would you give your teacher for Christmas? Why:
I would give teacher motorcycl.
I would give my teacher a kiss me because I love teacher.
I would give teacher a healthy basket because she is old.

What would you give your boyfriend or girlfriend for Christmas?
I would give boyfriend frist kiss. Because I fell very.
I'm singer. (He meant "single")
I would give my girlfriend a Singha beer because I will be opend her virgin. (!!!...Don't worry, this one was the only scandalous response I received.)

How would you give back to your community?:
I would go picnic family and go shopping. Because love shopping very fun.
I would help the blind. Because they don't feel lonely. I want they know, we are here.
I would grow the tree because Phitsanulok has bed air.

They're cute, right?

Yours,
R

This happened...

Take a guess:

a) I've such abundant spare time here I've joined a small amateur cabaret group based out of Phitsanulok.

b) My blonde hair has enabled me to become a celebrity in Bollywood's lesser known cousin Bangkok Hills, and this is a still from my latest film (to be released straight to VCD in Thailand May 2010).

c) We had a district wide Teacher Sports Day and I was chosen to dress in traditional Thai garb and lead our school in the parade.

d) I've gotten married.


Yours,
Rebecca

It turns out you CAN buy Christmas decorations here

and so tonight I brought Christmas to my little flat on Ekatossarot Road.



The relative abundance of Christmas decorations in a Buddhist country was clarified for me by a teacher, "we celebrate ALL holidays here in Thailand." Which explains both why I could buy a Santa hat and also why I haven't seen my Thursday or Friday classes in weeks.

Yours,
R

Some recent excursions

Reader, I must tell you, I have not just been teaching. I have also been exploring a little. These past few weekends I've ventured out of Phitsanulok to some choice nearby destinations.

First, a quick trip to the village of Sawankhaloke to visit my dear friend Marie. We took in the sights with a few of the girls at Sukhothai, where the ancient ruins of the 11th-15th century Thai capital make for a terrific day of bike riding. Sukhothai was the capital of Thailand prior to its relocation to Ayutthaya (see the my October homestay post for pictures of Ayutthaya). Now Sukhothai is a UNESCO World Heritage historical site, and it's also very very pretty. Large brick ruins in various states of disrepair and restoration, giant and ancient stone Buddhas keeping a calm watch on the few tourists and school children, lotus spotted lakes separating crumbling temples.






And also a trip back to Bangkok for Thanksgiving. Fulbright was ever so kind as to fly us back and put us to work cleaning the streets of Bangkok as a day of outreach and education. In reality, we spent about forty five minutes impeding the progress of actual Bangkok street cleaners before sitting down to a few hours of panel discussions about the state of street cleaning in Bangkok (thanks to Anna for some of these pictures).



Additionally, dear Fulbright made sure we got an authentic Thanksgiving feast by raiding the pantry at the U.S. Embassy grocery store (apparently such a thing exists). There were even imported Butterball turkeys! And cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. Eating something other than rice and noodles was unbelievably exciting. The caterers actually voiced concerns to our host about the amount of food we consumed.

And finally, this past weekend was a three day weekend in honor of the King's 82nd birthday. After several hours of birthday ceremonies at school on Friday, I boarded a bus for the beach. It was total bliss.




Anna and I embarked on the trip with images of the backpacker-chic lifestyle in our heads, but ended up appearing significantly more like honeymooners than savvy young world travelers. Due to the holiday weekend every hostel and resort on the island was full save the Silver Sand Resort, which really ended up being totally lovely. However, it wasn't until right about when the resort's night club really got going that we realized we were staying at the island's gay hotel...

That's it for now. Sorry to bore you with a laundry list of activities. I hope you're doing well reader. Are you enjoying the brisk air of American winter? Have you seen snow yet (it's the cold season here too in Phitsanulok, which means 80 and sunny, though my students protest that this is still too cold)? Are the Christmas carols everywhere yet?

Yours truly,
Rebecca

The glamorous life of a teacher

December 7-9, 2009. Classes M 5.1-5.12.
Daily objective: describe your favorite animal.

For the most part, the hypothetical "paragraphs" of "full sentences" about favorite animals turned out like this: Favorite animal cat. Pretty. That's gets a student full credit in my class. However, I saved some of the gems for you:

My favorite animal is a rat. Because it is small. It is cute. It is delicious.

My favorite animal dog. I like because friend alone time.

And the kids who own dictionaries:

I lik goldfish: It'is beautiful and adroit.

I would like a shark because them have a teeth danger. But it animal wonderful. It predator bite sed predator bite crocodile. Some scientists belive shark best target predator.


Additionally, I've been really indulging in the mad perks of teaching. Look at these gifts I got from some of my kids today. That bracelet is from a nice girl in one of my 11th grade classes named Fai. I can't so much specify the giver of the apple-looking-things. I was walking past these two cute girls at school and they saw me and practically fell over themselves in their haste to give me the fruit. Maybe I'll eat them for dessert?



So reader, what is your favorite animal?

Teacher Rebecca